Advise before you study the language
Speaking · C1 entry diagnostic · No model first
Northbank Services has tested Aster, a digital case-routing platform, for 12 weeks with two client-support teams. The internal headline says work became faster, while training, accessibility and compliance questions remain open. Tomorrow the leadership team must choose a full rollout, a limited extension, a pause for remediation or an end to the pilot.
Give an initial two-minute recommendation to the leadership team and state how certain they should be about its basis.
- Take 30 seconds to note only decision, strongest result, largest unresolved risk and next action. Do not write sentences.
- Speak for two minutes without restarting. Distinguish what the summary states from what you infer and recommend.
- A listener records every proposition that sounded certain, qualified or attributed and the wording or delivery cue that created that reading. Working alone, record and make the same map after a short delay.
- Keep the recording and listener map unchanged. They are baseline evidence for Lessons 3 and 6, not a test of how many hedges you already know.
The Aster decision record
Northbank Services · Fictional classroom case
Northbank provides account and logistics support to business clients through six teams. It tested the Aster case-routing platform for 12 weeks in two volunteer teams with 84 employees. The leadership team must decide whether to buy an annual licence and expand immediately, extend the limited pilot with conditions, pause for remediation or stop using the platform.
Shared decision record · What is known
| Area | Recorded information | Limit or dependency |
|---|---|---|
| Pilot scope | Two volunteer client-support teams, 84 employees and 12 weeks of use | The other four teams handle different client portfolios; allocation was not random |
| Resolution time | Median case-resolution time moved from 18.4 hours in the preceding 12 weeks to 16.2 hours during the pilot | Incoming case volume was 9% lower during the pilot, and the dashboard does not isolate Aster’s contribution |
| Case quality | The share of cases reopened within seven days moved from 7.1% to 6.8% | The quality team has not determined whether the difference is meaningful or persistent |
| Workforce survey | Sixty-two of 84 employees responded; 24 respondents reported that routing alerts interrupted concentrated work | The survey is self-reported, and non-respondents’ experience is unknown |
| Training and access | Required training was completed by 92% of day-shift staff and 54% of evening-shift staff in the pilot teams | Keyboard and screen-reader testing is still open; no full-team rollout has been accessibility-approved |
| Compliance | One restricted case summary was routed to a broader internal queue; it contained no client identifier | The compliance review has not yet established the cause or whether the control would prevent recurrence |
| Client response | Average post-case satisfaction moved from 4.3 to 4.4 out of five | The response rate moved from 28% before the pilot to 21% during it |
| Commercial case | The annual licence costs 480,000 credits; the vendor projects 1.1 million credits in yearly productivity value | The projection assumes all six teams reproduce the pilot pace and has not been independently reviewed |
| Contract timing | The pilot licence ends in 30 days, and the vendor will hold the annual price until then | The deadline is commercial; it does not remove Northbank’s assurance obligations |
Choose the statement the decision record supports. Separate observation, attribution and inference.
1. What can Northbank say about resolution time?
2. How should the 1.1-million-credit figure be presented?
3. What does the compliance record establish?
4. Which recommendation is currently defensible?
Name the job before choosing the language
First diagnostic lens · Full language system comes in Lesson 3
| Proposition job | Question to answer | Aster example |
|---|---|---|
| Established record | What can the speaker state directly and exactly? | The pilot involved 84 employees in two volunteer teams for 12 weeks. |
| Attributed position | Whose claim, estimate or interpretation is this? | The vendor projects 1.1 million credits in annual productivity value. |
| Bounded measurement | What was measured, in which scope, and what comparison is available? | Median resolution time was lower during the pilot period, when volume was also lower. |
| Interpretation | What reading is plausible but not established by the record? | The pattern may indicate an operational benefit worth testing under comparable volume. |
| Recommendation | What should happen, under whose authority and on what condition? | Northbank should withhold full rollout until compliance and accessibility owners close named assurance gaps. |
Precision is not maximum caution. A date, count or documented event can be stated directly. A projection needs attribution; an interpretation needs an evidence boundary; a recommendation needs an owner and decision threshold. Adding perhaps everywhere can make established facts unusable, while removing every limit can turn a plausible reading into a false guarantee.
Professional authority is audible structure, not a lowered voice. Clear thought groups, decisive prominence on the action or contrast, and an unhurried boundary before a caveat can help listeners recover what is known and what follows. Equal stress, theatrical gravity or whispered hedges can obscure that hierarchy.
Match each sentence opening to the job it performs in this decision record. Do not treat every cautious expression as equally precise.
Keep certainty attached to the right layer
Match each statement to its primary status in the shared record. The same topic can support different statuses.
F Established fact
A Attributed claim
M Bounded measurement
I Interpretation
R Recommendation
U Unresolved question
1. The pilot licence ends in 30 days.
2. The vendor estimates 1.1 million credits in annual productivity value.
3. Median resolution time moved from 18.4 to 16.2 hours while incoming volume was 9% lower.
4. The speed pattern may justify a longer test under comparable demand.
5. Northbank should complete keyboard and screen-reader testing before any full rollout.
6. The compliance review has not established why the restricted summary reached the broader queue.
Choose the version whose strength fits the record and professional purpose.
1. The board asks whether Aster caused the faster median. Which answer is calibrated?
2. The board asks whether an incident occurred. Which answer is calibrated?
3. The board asks what to do next. Which answer is decision-ready?
Give the decision briefing the record can carry
Baseline professional presentation · Recorded evidence
You are the analyst responsible for briefing Northbank’s leadership team. Recommend immediate expansion, a limited extension, a pause for remediation or an end to the Aster pilot. The leaders need a decision they can defend to employees, clients and the board.
Deliver a four-minute professional presentation, answer evidence challenges and close with an accountable recommendation.
- Minutes 1–3 · plan: create five noun-phrase headings: decision, operational case, people and access, compliance and commercial case, conditions. Mark the source or evidence status beside each; do not script sentences.
- Minutes 4–7 · present: speak for four minutes without restarting. State what the record establishes, attribute external claims, bound interpretations and make responsibility for the recommendation visible.
- Minutes 8–12 · challenge: answer “What do we know?”, “Who says?”, “What remains unresolved?”, “What action follows?” and “What evidence would change your advice?” The listener may interrupt once when wording is too strong or too weak.
- Minutes 13–15 · decision close: restate the recommendation, decision threshold, named owners and next reporting point in 45–60 seconds.
- Minutes 16–18 · preserve: save the recording and the notes. The listener marks each proposition as direct, attributed, qualified or unclear and records the strongest prominence in the closing recommendation.
Baseline evidence record
| Dimension | What the listener records |
|---|---|
| Source ownership | Can each projection, survey result and unresolved review be assigned to its source? |
| Calibration | Which claims sounded stronger or weaker than the underlying record? |
| Decision usefulness | Can the listener recover the recommendation, conditions, owners and next report? |
| Professional lexis | Which terms clarified risk, assurance, remediation, dependency or value—and which remained vague? |
| Discourse | Did known information lead through risk and interpretation to action, or did caveats obscure the path? |
| Delivery | Which thought groups, pauses and prominence made certainty, contrast and action recoverable? |
Describe the mismatch, not the personality
Choose the feedback that can guide later calibration work.
1. The speaker says “Aster delivered 1.1 million credits in savings.” Which note is useful?
2. The speaker says “There may perhaps have been a routing incident.” Which note is useful?
3. A listener recovers every caveat but not the recommendation. Which note is useful?
Create the Unit 40 baseline map
Align your intended meaning, exact wording, delivery and the listener’s proposition map.
Save two successful calibrations and two mismatches for later comparison.
- For each item, quote or transcribe no more than one sentence and add its audio time stamp.
- Classify the proposition job: established record, attribution, bounded measurement, interpretation, unresolved question or recommendation.
- Name the mismatch precisely: source lost, fact hedged, inference overstated, uncertainty stacked, responsibility hidden, action buried or delivery misweighted.
- Do not rewrite the sentence yet. Lesson 3 will supply the full reporting and hedging system; Lesson 6 will repair only patterns supported by repeated evidence.
Carry questions into authentic professional input
Choose the principle this diagnostic establishes.
1. What does precise professional hedging require?
Standing informal-input bridge
Select one full Conversations with Tyler episode and one Harvard Business Review feature that address a consequential professional judgement. For Lesson 2, record the episode title and one 45–75-second location, plus the feature title and one paragraph opening. At each location, note in your own words one established fact, one attributed view or interpretation and one action claim. Mark what sounds firm, qualified or unclear and the exact wording or delivery cue that creates that reading. Keep the source location; do not copy an extended passage or imitate the speaker’s voice.